


Take me to your leader

by lindt_barton



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: AU, Drabble, First Contact, Fluff, Gen, Young Kirk, Young Spock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 06:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10530486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindt_barton/pseuds/lindt_barton
Summary: "I come in peace," he says. The first thing he says.Jim laughs, "What?"And that's how it happens. 1983. First contact.





	

"I come in peace," he says. The first thing he says.

Jim laughs, "What?" 

And that's how it happens. 1983. First contact.

With a 24 year old guy called Jim leaning out of the driver's side window of a bluish station wagon at the side of a road. Where a helluva lot of curiosity and some sort of moral core have pulled him to a stop beside a forlorn man and what was once his car. Orange dust, melon sized pale rocks and parched desert plants stretch for miles around them under bleaching noon sun. The only landmark is the plume of smoke from the wreck that stretches and fades into the sky. 

The man falters. 

His right hand, raised in a picture perfect greeting, droops. The other hovers at his hip, over something that looks vaguely like a gun. He looks 20-ish, like Jim, but otherwise taller, finer, and dark haired. For some reason his ears are made up to be pointed. There is an odd looking camera slung over his shoulder, and the clothes he is wearing are both, unlike anything Jim has ever seen someone wearing, and a mess.

A dark liquid rolls from underneath his disarrayed hairline. 

"My name is S'chn T'gai Spock. Please, take me to your leader."

Jim says, "What are you on?" The man, confused, looks at his feet. Jim laughs again, "Okay, buddy, what happened?"

The man visibly considers, before answering, "My transport suffered from an unexpected and catastrophic malfunction. I am afraid I cannot, in good conscience, offer any further detail on the situation." 

Jim thinks, *what the fuck*, but only raises and eyebrow and says, "Can your conscience tell me if its head got whacked?"

The kid reaches for his temple at the prompt. His fingers come away smeared dark green. The sight of it turns his face pale. Suddenly unsteady, he stumbles backwards. Jim throws the door open and leaps forward expecting to catch him, but the kid leaps away from him and draws his gun. 

"Woah, woah, woah," Jim's hands are already in the air. The frame of the car door digs into his back. Sweat prickles across his body. The air is silent but for the deep pants of breath he's suddenly taking. He squints through the glaring sun at the kid. 

He looks more afraid than dangerous, even if his shooting hand is rock steady. 

Jim says, "Let me help."

He takes another breath. 

The man lowers his gun. 

He says, "I apologise. I am unfamiliar with the behaviour patterns of your species." Jim stares the green smear on his forehead. _Species._ This is where Bones would tell him to leap in the car and drive the fuck away. Jim would chime back, _I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required._ Bones would growl.

Jim stands up straight, fixes his button-down, steps forwards wearing his best smile and says, "I'm Jim."

He stretches out his hand. 

Slowly, and with a confused frown, the man says, "My name is still S'chn T'gai Spock," but he does stretch out a mirrored hand in return.

Jim sticks with the only part of that could hope to pronounce, "Nice to meet you Spock." 

They shake. 

In the corner if his eye, Jim sees that what he had take for a car, in fact, has no wheels. And a distinctly aeronautical silhouette. Now that he's stepped away from the road he can see that it sits in a deep gash in through the earth that starts out of nowhere 500 feet away. 

He looks back to Spock. Jim sees an inch long cut on his forehead from which the green liquid is seeping. Sees that there is no makeup join on his pointed ears. That he is not just pale, but a colour that Jim does not recognise, with deep muddy green eyes. 

Jim steps back, letting Spock's hand fall. He thinks he says something, but his ears are ringing too loud to hear. 

"It is my blood," Spock says, watching him intently. 

Jim nods absently, looking at nothing somewhere between Spock and the wreck, "Okay," and then, "What are you?"

"I am a Vulcan." Jim nods again, his eyes closed. "It is our belief that primitive species-" Jim opens his eyes just to side-eye him, "-should not be contacted until they have developed sufficiently, and so I attempted to conceal my identity." 

Kirk says, "So this is-" _One small step for man._ With a finger pointing into the air, he darts back to his car to rummage in the back seat. Soon he springs back out with a flash. Two flashes in fact. To snap two photos of an unsuspected Vulcan, caught with head tilted, eyebrow raised, fascinated. And then surprised. 

Jim grins, "History!"

**Author's Note:**

> ah, the road trip au that never was...


End file.
